Equal (life) and justice • Letter to Senate

To an extent, Shakespeare was right. Often times when commoners die, they pass away unsung, it is only in rare cases that their death make the front page. When that happens, you know immediately that something extra – ordinary must have happened. Whatever it is, it is usually not palatable. So, it was on September 20 when eight persons were killed in Apo, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja during a raid by a combined team of soldiers and State Security Service (SSS) officials.

The outcry over the Apo killings was deafening not because it was the second time in eight years that such a thing was happening in the capital city, but because it was becoming routine for our security operatives to wittingly kill their compatriots. It seems our security operatives take delight in killing their civilian brethren just for the fun of it. At the drop of a hat, they are ready to shoot to kill without taking into consideration the consequences of their action.

They are apparently quick on the trigger because they know they will get away with their despicable act. All they need do is to tag their victims robbers. And in these days of Boko Haram, their alibi is made stronger. They know that once anybody is associated with that group, he will not enjoy sympathy from the people. The SSS was counting on such support when it went to town over why it embarked on the dawn raid along with soldiers on defenceless civilians living in an uncompleted building in Apo that September.

Most of the inhabitants were doing menial jobs. Some were commercial tricycle operators, some shoe shiners, some washer men and so on and so forth. Because of the acute accommodation problem in Abuja, they were lucky to find such a place to hide their heads for a paltry N200 or N300 per night. Undoubtedly, in a situation like that, it is quite easy for those who do not mean well for the country to find their way into such a place. It is also easy for such evil – minded people to get new converts there. But this is not to say that everybody there will harbour evil intentions or will be criminals.

Unfortunately, this was how the SSS labelled all the occupants of the building before it set out on its mission in September. With such a mindset, the security operatives went to Apo to kill, no more no less. It was a predetermined action because they had already made up their minds about those poor fellows. As a layman in security matters, I have not ceased wondering whether the rules of the game allow security men to behave in such irrational manner when they are not sure of how to classify their target.

Do you label the target a criminal before or after an operation? How do you know that he is a criminal without interrogating him? Do you label someone a criminal by the company he unintentionally keeps or for sharing unknowingly the same quarters with suspected criminals? In this instant case, the SSS went to the Apo building based on what it called the intelligence it received that Boko Haram suspects were hibernating there. All the security men had in their heads as they went for the mission was that they were going after Boko Haram. Since the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom, they were prepared to kill.

In their haste to shoot anybody they came across, they forgot their rules of engagement. No matter the intelligence they might have gathered, they should have had it at the backs of their minds that those they were going after were civilians, whether Boko Haram or not. If they chose to forget that, our senators should not have made the same mistake. The SSS men may have a score to settle with Boko Haram and other insurgents, going by what happened to some of their colleagues in the hands of the Ombatse cult in Nasarawa State a few months ago, but that is not enough reason for them to behave like those people.

If Boko Haram and other militias are losing their heads at will, our security operatives are expected to keep theirs to show that they have what it takes to do their kind of job. If we remember we got to this pass because the police lost their cool and killed Muhammed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, after he was arrested and handed over to them by soldiers in 2009. If soldiers could do that despite being trained to kill, why couldn’t the police, that are trained to be civil, restrain themselves in like manner? This is why I am shocked that some senators could defend the SSS’ action in killing in cold blood the Apo 8 on September 20.

In defending the SSS, Chairman of the Joint Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Mohammed Magoro, who retired from the army as a general, said majority of the occupants of the Apo building cohabited with Boko Haram elements ”unknowingly”. In one breath, he described the SSS raid as ”necessary and timely” and in another, he said :”The conduct of the operatives leaves much to be desired”. Magoro was not done in his paradox of contradictions. Hear him : ”The death of eight people was not a case of extra – judicial killing but the action of an hastily executed operation”.

I pray when you hastily execute an operation, what do you get? By now, with what happened in Apo on September 22, we all know the answer. It is sad that the Senate adopted the committee’s report. It is obvious that it did so because it felt that the lives of some of its principal officers were at risk, with the so – called Boko Haram elements as their neighbours. That is a wrong way to look at the issue. The Senate should have called the SSS to order instead of giving it the latitude to do something worse in future. The Senate, by its action, has unwittingly armed all our security agencies to engage in extra – judicial killing under the guise of ferreting out suspected criminals.

The Senate should remember that a life is a life whether that of a prince or pauper. If the Senate deems it fit to protect its own why can’t it extend the same gesture to the commoners who voted its members to power. By its action, what the Senate is telling us is that we are only good at voting for them, but do not deserve to be protected when our lives are in danger from the very people we pay to secure us. May I commend to the Senate, these lines from Justice Chukwudifu Oputa’s verdict in a Supreme Court case in 1986 : ”In our system, it is better that nine guilty persons escape than that one innocent man is condemned”.

Neither the Senate nor SSS gave the innocent in the September 20 tragedy the benefit of doubt. The SSS killed them and the Senate sanctioned the extra – judicial killings under the guise of fighting terrorism. Was he Magoro panel asked to look into acts of terrorism or to probe the Apo killings?